Taiwan Diary

Who remembers that joke about the jackrabbit in Wyoming? About all he does is eat, sleep and hop around a bit. Well…that’s us! Weather still dreadful, which does put a damper on things. Today we woke up at 4, ate a huge breakfast, headed out at 7:30 am to explore Taiwan. The residential buildings are quite dilapidated, not at all new and shiny like Singapore as I expected. Reminds me of Moscow. There are beautiful shrines erected for the martyrs of the revolution and, of course, Chiang Kai-shek . I wish I knew more about Chinese history but based on the little I have read I know that the Japanese were quite aggressive in trying to conquer China during the 1930s and 40s. A Chinese Civil War was brewing between the corrupt and brutal Nationalist party of Chiang Kai-shek, called the Kuomintang, and Mao’s communist party. Well, we all know who won but the Nationalists fled with 3 million people and most of ancient China’s art treasures when the Japanese lost WWII and Taiwan in 1947. We went to this National Palace museum today in Taiwan housing all the treasures of ancient China and it is astounding. Then we ate a huge lunch, played scrabble, took a nap and will be off to a huge dinner soon.

We’re going to the jade market, an ancient nunnery, meeting a lawyer friend of Eberhard’s for tea, and then having dinner at a famous restaurant called Hutong where we ordered “Beggar’s Chicken” in advance. They bake it in wet clay and you get a hammer to crack open the shell.